Government Accrual Reports: Are They Better Than Cash?

In assessing the usefulness of consolidated accrual reporting for governments there are grounds for both optimism and caution. Accrual reporting offers some advantages although a number of government specific issues relating to the preparation and interpretation of government accrual accounts need to be addressed. These issues include the implications of the different role of governments compared to businesses and boundary issues, such as the treatment of public pensions.
Accrual reports will not meet all our reporting needs and the limitations of the reports will need to be understood by users. Commonwealth and State treasuries are currently examining accrual reporting issues. A number of treasuries have already published consolidated accrual reports and most remaining jurisdictions are to trial the preparation of consolidated accrual reports.     

Cross-national election surveys: A French pre-test

In common with scholars in other leading democracies, election researchers of France and the United States rely heavily on a survey research methodology; but their respective national election surveys do not pose many of the same questions, and the dominant research paradigms in each country offer opposing explanatory models of vote choice. Herein are reported preliminary results from a joint effort of US and French researchers, which seeks to include numerous cross-national items in the French National Election Study (for 1995). The following American National Election Study (ANES)-type items receive attention: candidate feeling thermometers, job approval ratings, economic evaluations, seven-point proximity measures on social issues and party identification. Inclusion of these measures in French surveys may allow an important cross-nation extension of voting models thought to be peculiar to one political culture, such as the US.     

Proposed fiscal year 1997 budgets for social and behavioral science research

COSSA is the advocate in Washington for the social and behavioral sciences. He also chairs the Coalition for National Science Funding. He has testified before Congress many times and has written and spoken extensively on legislative-executive relations, the federal budget process and science policy, particularly as it affects the social and behavioral sciences. This report was prepared by the author with the assistance of the COSSA staff.     

(Non)equivalence in a federalism: Dual tax shares, flypaper effects and Leviathan

Among the best-known theorems of fiscal federalism is the presumed allocative and distributive equivalence between a lump-sum grant to a collectivity and a set of lump sum grants to the members of a collectivity. Interestingly, the simple elegance of the theorem is at odds with observed behavior. Grants to governments produce greater public spending than does tax reduction. Explanations of this "flypaper effect" range from misspecified econometric modeling to presumed behavior based on fiscal illusion. In this paper we show that theoretical equivalence exists in a model that recognizes only one tax share, the citizen voter's local tax share. When the model is expanded to include voters' federal tax shares as well as local taxes, non-equivalence and the flypaper effect become the rule, not the exception.     

The public demand for smoking bans

Smoking bans are gaining widespread support in the United States and other countries. While supporters argue that bans are necessary to resolve market failures associated with negative externalities, the Coase Theorem predicts that, under various conditions, private markets internalize negative externalities. We examine the smoking issue within the framework of the Coase Theorem and hypothesize that smoking bans misallocate air space resources shared by smokers and nonsmokers. Because smoking bans shift ownership of scarce resources, they are also hypothesized to transfer income from one party (smokers) to another party (nonsmokers). Supporting evidence for these hypotheses is provided by an examination of a comprehensive smoking ban imposed in San Luis Obispo, CA.     

The political economy of central bank intervention

This paper analyzes an exchange rate policy game between a central bank and rational speculators under symmetric information. The central bank tries to counteract shocks to the exchange rate by means of sterilized intervention working through the expectations channel. Private speculators resist being fooled. They anticipate the interventions. An “intervention bias” results with an inefficiently high equilibrium volume of intervention which does not reduce the impact of shocks to the exchange rate. The model implies that the more independent the central bank the smaller and the more consistent the intervention efforts. An empirical illustration lends some support to the model.     

The State of American Federalism, 1993-1994

National political energies in 1993–1994 were focusedon major initiatives promised by the Clinton administrationduring the 1992 presidential campaign, especially health-carereform and crime. From the perspective of the states, federalgovernment action in these (and other) policy areas raised seriousquestions about preemption and mandates. The administration'sofficial pronouncements on federalism have suggested a strategyof decongestion and decentralization. Thus far, its actionshave fallen short of empowerment, taking instead the path ofregulatory waivers. Frustrated with the federal government,states and localities continued to engage in policy experimentation.     

Workplace education for hourly workers

Concerns about U.S. competitiveness have increasingly focused the attention of policymakers on the workforce and mechanisms that could be used to enhance both the quality and quantity of human capital in the workplace. This article focuses on basic skills education of hourly workers, precisely the type of human capital which is likely to be most underprovided by the private market. Five questions are addressed: First, what is the nature of workplace education programs? Second, why do some firms provide workplace education programs while others do not? Third, what, if any, characteristics distinguish those firms that provide workplace education programs from seemingly comparable firms that do not? Fourth, what, if any, evidence can be found identifying the effects of these programs on the firms that sponsor them? Fifth, what policies appear most likely to stimulate additional workplace education?